Product life cycle of McDonalds

The marketing plan is a very important plan in an organisation. It is a plan which concern about the present and future of the organisation. It gives a broad idea about the organisation aims, goals, and objectives to become success. In an organisation marketing plan laid on according to the organisations vision and mission in mind. Marketing plan designed to fully support aims and strategic objectives and to successfully overcome the strategic objectives. Marketing plan shows the overall success that your organisation wants to be.

Marketing plan is a structured way of dealing with marketing strategies and it is not a collection of incomprehensible bits and pieces. It needs to be run in the organisation systematically and need to be monitored and updated. Because in an organisation their business or services are runs according to their marketing plan it impacts the organisations strategies so it needs to be evaluate to make sure weather the organisation reaching their goals.

Marketing plan is a planned application of marketing resources to achieve marketing objectives.

Marketing strategy is contains total organisation goals. It includes a broad description of the organisation, a brief description of the organisation products or services and organisations profile of their target customers or clients, and defines organisations role in likeliness to the competition. Marketing strategy is essentially a document that organisations use to measure the appropriateness and effectiveness of their marketing plan.

A proper marketing strategy generates specific goals and can includes, a brief description of the main targets, competitive market segments the organisation will compete in, the unique position of the organisation and its products and the competition. An overall organisation marketing strategy will explain the business, position of the business as a market leader, challenger or niche player, explains the image or brand.

(Source: Idea was taken from, marketing plans: how to prepare them, how to use them By Malcolm McDonald 1998)

Learning Out comes

Understand how the marketing plan supports strategic objectives.

Understand the construction of a marketing plan

Understand how to promote the marketing plan in support of strategic objectives.

An organisation creating a marketing plan they have to think about their mission statement. According to Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong mission statement is a statement of the organisation’s purpose what it wants accomplish in a larger environment.

By starting clear analysis and understanding of the strategy and objectives of the organisation and what is the corporate development strategy will give clear understanding about the organisation which is essential for three reasons. First reason, marketing expertise is required to implement corporate strategy. Second reason, high priority marketing decisions like which market niches to be address, distribution product, and direct marketing tactics flow directly from the organisation strategy. And the last reason, quality management philosophy will provide the foundation for creating the strategic marketing plan. Identifying the organisation strategic business unit (SBU)this may be an entire organisation, a division, a particular product line, or a single product, as long as that particular unit is a separate entity for planning purposes, in another word which has its own management, ability to access its resources, positioning strategy, Customers and competitors.

A strategic business unit SBU should large enough to be a meaningful unit for strategy formulation and evaluation, as well as small enough for effective planning and marketing management.

Marketing audit can easily explain as a very important part of a marketing planning. It is a very valuable process which is carried out at regular intervals during the actual marketing planning in an organisation. A marketing audit has a lot to offer for the marketing planning process through the various external and internal factors. There are a number of tools and techniques that are used during a marketing audit. SWOT Analysis is one of the most valuable tools of marketing audit which explains organisations Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats analysis. This tool offers a lot of help to the decision makers and is used at the beginning of the marketing audit in an organisation. The SWOT analysis brings a lot of advantages as well as it has some drawbacks. Some of the drawbacks of SWOT analysis are that it is very subjective and cannot be relied upon too much. Though, it has always been recommended that the SWOT analysis be used as a guide in the marketing planning process and not as an only solution to the different problems.

PEST Analysis is the analysis of the different type of factors that have an effect upon the marketing planning. When the organisation undergoing a marketing analysis they should keep in mind to consider all the environmental factors and give it a high focus thorough analysis. These environmental factors may be internal or external. The internal factors evaluate of the staff and queries related to the organisation. The external would be the external customers and the various distributors connected to the organisations concern and the political and economic factors should take it into the consideration.

Five forces Analysis is an analysis which creates a clear picture of the competition outside in the market for the decision makers. This analysis has some similarities with the PEST analysis and it is different in the direction focus its attention to a single business or a single concern. Five force analyses the decision maker basically covers five basic areas of concern. These areas can be described as the areas of treat of entry, the suppliers power the power of the buyers and also the threats revealed by the competitors and the rivals. Some of the advantages associated with this analysis that various distribution channels can also be easily accessed and also finds out if the cost of switching over to some other supplier is cheap or not.

A marketing audit can be described as a comprehensive, periodic and a systematic procedure of checking out the marketing activities of an organisations concern. Some of the other benefits and advantages of marketing audit are that the audit creates the decision makers with an in deep view of the marketing activities that are going through in the organisation. Marketing audit brings out a complete image of the entire operations of the organisation. By detecting the various drawbacks and the audit process also runs to efficiency. Marketing audit process used to create an improved marketing plan.

Marketing mix is probably the most well known marketing term. Its integrity is the basic, tactical components of a marketing plan and Also known as the seven P's. They are Price, Place, Promotion, Product, Physical evidence, People, Process.

Product: Organisation should aware about their current product or service, or mix of products and services, appropriate and suitable for the current market and the customers. When an organisation struggle to sell products or services as much as they like, Organisation need to develop the habit of assessing their business honestly weather these are the right products or services for our customers in the current situation. Need to be aware what their customers offer. Is the business supply to the demand?

Price: The second P in the marketing mix is price. Organisation should monitor the prices of the products and services that they sell, to make sure they are still appropriate to the trend of the current market. Sometimes organisation need to lower their prices. At other times, it may be suitable to raise the prices. Many organisations have found that the profits of certain products or services don not fare to the amount of effort and resources that go into production. By increasing their prices, they may lose some of their customers, but the remaining customers generate a profit on every sale. For some organisations this may be appropriate for some this doesn’t.

Promotion is the third P which makes organisations marketing and sales to think in terms of promotion all the time. Promotion describes the idea that how to make your customers aware about the organisations product or services and put them in the market and sell them. In organisations changing simple things to promote product or services can make them huge differences to their sales. To make simple changes to their advertisements can produce better sales. Whatever changes made to the organisation promotion will give results for certain time. In any business the organisations needs to change their way of promote time to time then they can keep the products or services running.

Place is an important to organisations because it has to be the right place to do the business. Place is a location where customers can purchase goods or services. This normally meant for distribution channels. This can include physical store or virtual store on the internet.

People who are directly or indirectly connected to the organisation product or services are important part of the marketing mix. Employees, management, knowledge staff and customers are significantly added value to the end product or service so these people are so important to the organisation.

Process is an essential marketing strategy in marketing mix. Specially process customer management and keep customers happy as well as keep them loyal to the organisations products and services.

Physical evidence is an essential part of the service mix which allows the customer to make judgments on the organisation. If a person walks into a McDonald restaurant his or her expectations are of a clean, friendly and quick serving environment. On an aircraft if someone travels first class he or she expects enough room to be able to sit down and relax.

Physical evidence is an important item of the marketing mix; customers will make their likeliness based on their sight of the service which will have a direct impact on the organisations plan of the service.

McDonalds Marketing Plan

McDonald’s is one of the best fast food brands in the world. One of their main aims is to continuously build up their brand name by listening to their customers. By branding an organisation like McDonalds can create a personality to their organisation profile, product or services they supply. The brand they create is an image which customers looks at its very important to the organisation.

Branding McDonalds only works if they manage to keep up their performances constantly. In McDonalds marketing methods like advertising, promotions colourful logos gives them a brand which recognised by the whole wide world. McDonalds they have golden arches as their logo. This is globalised logo.

There are so many things effects business in the market especially from competitors as well as legal, economic, social factors, technological changes, retail, and many other things which Needs to overcome to success in the business.

McDonalds survey what are customer’s requirements and by successfully satisfying customers more than their competitors they creates loyal customers. So McDonalds needs to identify who are the potential customers because everybody doesn’t want what McDonalds has to offer and the customers who identify as likely customers are the key audience in their business.

The marketing mix and market research of McDonalds

Having find out who is the key audience are McDonalds needs to create a marketing mix to their audience. Marketing mix talk about 4ps mainly the extended marketing mix talks about 7ps. Market research helps to identify the requirements of their key target and helps to build better marketing mix which satisfy their customers.

By doing their market research they can identify their customers’ needs such as

By getting accurate results from a marketing research will helps to create marketing mix which can increase sales and win loyal customers. Economy can change. If economy change social attitude will change this affects buying habits of the customers. McDonalds need to constantly monitor weather their customers are increasing or decreasing or their interest will change in the future.

Organisation can identify everything which affect on buying habits by doing market research. Buying habits of customers can often change wider than just the products itself. Customer’s psychological behaviour is very important. As an example how customers love to purchase a particular product because it is taste better or its looks nice. This psychological attraction sometimes more important than what product can really supply for the customers. Through marketing Mcdonalds manage to create an image inside customers mind. That is branding.

Meeting the needs of the key customers.

There are limited amount of consumers in the market. So it is essential to keep customers once they have become customers for the long term business. Customers are different by person to another so McDonald’s market research identifies different types of customers.

Children (Love to visit McDonalds because they facilities to play and eat. It’s a fun place to eat.)

Teenagers (Love to visit McDonalds because they have affordable menus like saver menu and free internet access.)

Parents with children (Love to visit McDonalds because they can give a break to their kids.)

Business customer (Love to visit McDonalds because their service is fast and have great tasting food which can eat anywhere without disturbing to a tide work schedule.)

These are only some examples which possibly fit for some customers profiles. Everybody has a different idea to visit McDonalds.

By using this information McDonalds can target specific groups and what they needs. These needs which creates which type of product, services needed and offered, prices, where restaurants needs to be located and promotions. To create a marketing strategy which helps to overcome in other words to be success in these needs first needs to analyse the organisations strengths and weaknesses.

The analysis will targets the following parts of the organisations business.

The McDonalds products and how they fit in the future.

The employee’s quality. Are they trained enough to deliver the best customer service?

The McDonalds functioning system is it satisfied customer’s needs?

Does McDonalds have financial resources for marketing?

When McDonalds identify the weaknesses and strengths they are combining with threats and opportunities in the present market. This is known as SWOT analysis.

SWOT analysis determines the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the organisation to clearly understand the situation.

Figure1.1 SWOT analysis of McDonalds

Strengths (internal)

Weaknesses(internal)

McDonalds brand and detailed market research

To create the accurate marketing mix

McDonalds has been around for a long time. Therefore important to keep innovating

Opportunities(external)

Threats(external)

Increasing number of customers looking for food that is served in a quick and friendly way

Then the organisation can clearly verify what needs to be done to success in their business.

Marketing objectives

Organisation needs to create proper marketing strategy to understand which objectives needs to be met. The objectives explain what marketers want to fulfil, Monitoring marketing actions and by measuring how well a plan is working. These things can be creating awareness in the market, sales reaching the target market and shares. McDonalds broke down the long term objectives into short term measurable targets which uses as the milestones in McDonalds along the way.

Results can be analysed by monitoring weather the objectives are being achieved. This type of schedule will help the organisation to be change and to be flexible.

After marketing objectives has been created, then they needs to find out how they going to be achieved. The marketing strategy explains how objectives will be delivered. It describes what the marketing resources and actions are, will be used and how will they work together.

At this point marketing mix comes into play.

Product

When it comes to serve customers important thing is to deliver them a several number of choices to choose from the menu which gives customers to decide for which product they going to spend money for. In McDonalds they have created a menu according to their market research findings which helps their potential customers fulfil their needs.

Whatever we do to satisfy customers needs the customers interests change over time. What is demanded in the market today will be discarded tomorrow. So organisations needs to constantly monitor customer’s preferences.

In order to overcome this needs McDonalds manage to introduce variety of new products into the market which helps to keep sales going. When new product comes out old product will be phase down. And make sure that new product will be successful without failing and damaging the sales.

McDonalds make sure that the products in the menu will vary in different points as explains in the graph.

Sales

Time

Development

Introduction

Growth

Maturity

Decline

Figure 1.2 the product life cycle of McDonalds

In this product life cycle chart clearly show the products stages. According to the stage of the product resources will be invested. When a new products comes need resources to advertise the product through media which need money. Organisations have a portfolio of products in different stages of its product life cycle.

In McDonalds has a several products which grows to popular according the demand, The BIG MAC is a product which clearly in a maturity level of the product lifecycle.

Price

When price a product organisations always need to look from customers corner. Customers have their own picture that how is the product worth. If it is more than a physical product for the customers it contains psychological value for the customer.

If a product priced very low there is a concern about customers perspective towards that product because customers might jump into conclusion that the product is law priced based on the law quality. It is very important when a product been priced organisation has to keep in mind the brand and its integrity.

Promotions

Promotion covers all types of marketing communication in marketing mix. There is large number of ways to promote products such as advertising on TV, radio, in cinema, online, news papers, magazine, poster sites. There are methods as well such as Door to door service, free delivery, sales promotions, merchandising, direct mail, display, telemarketing, exhibitions, seminars, demonstrations, loyalty schemes and etc.

To success in the marketing communication is an organisations need to use several of these methods and creating a campaign to bring results. As a example mcdonalds have TV advertisements to give the awareness of the product to the customers, The printed media will give more details about the product. When a customer arrived to a McDonalds store there is a in store promotions to make people try the product and using collectable promotion they make customers to keep buying the product. Effective communication can deliver right message via right medium to the right target market or audiences. It is really important that the messages communicated through each and other supports without confusing the customer and understanding of what represent the brand. Key to success in marketing objective in advertising is making aware the customers about the products and makes them feel positive about the product.

Place

Place is very important for some organisations according to their nature of business or services. As a element of marketing mix place is not only a physical place or location it’s also contains process of bringing products to the end consumer.

Conclusion

In an organisations when create their marketing strategy responsibilities given to different individuals so that the marketing plan can be implemented. Various systems are put in to work to gain market feedback which can gain success against short-term targets. McDonald is concern that this is done within a tightly controlled, finite marketing budget.

Conclusions

Having identified what is strategic objectives and how it is impact upon the marketing plan organisations can create a better marketing plan which helps them to achieve their targets, goals, aims. In organisation top to bottom all the major parts needs to be handle when making marketing plan because all of these things directly or indirectly supports the marketing plan.

Especially the vision and mission statement is utmost important thing to organisations. Some of the organisation draw off from the market because they haven’t given their attention to those little things but have a massive impact for their business. Every organisation should flow from their vision and mission which actually helps them to achieve their targets and a create brand name to themselves.

Marketing audit can helps the organisations to understand their requirements what strategies to create. And make organisation runs into efficiency. SWOT analysis explains organisations strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for the organisation which extremely helps the organisation to create strategic objectives to be success in their business. Having identify the SWOT analysis organisation can creates their long term and short term objectives and goals.

Marketing mix is very important in marketing plan. When we talk about marketing mix we need to talk about 7ps. This gives the organisation an important background to lay their marketing plan on a firm ground.

Whatever the organisation is whether it is small or large, what they wants do is be success in the market. So the business has to build using and powerful foundation which gives them insurance in the market. I believe that marketing plan is the solid foundation which gives organisations success. If organisation manages to get it right that’s enough to say that they are successful.